The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Injuries › mysterious knee injury several months ago
The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Injuries › mysterious knee injury several months ago
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Hello all! This is my first time here, so please bear with me. Last April I did hot yoga for the first time. I was not new to yoga, just to hot yoga. I actually REALLY enjoyed it, but during my 3rd session, I did something to my left knee and all this time later it still hasn’t quite healed. I can’t remember exactly what pose I was in, I just remember standing with my feet several feet apart, my knees were likely locked (or close to it), and instead of bending my knees to return to a normal standing position like I SHOULD have, I brought in my left leg while it was still straight. I knew immediately I should not have done it because I felt a huge shooting pain, but it completely went away and I was able to finish the class.
A few days later, after a 3 mile run, my knee swelled and was VERY painful. After 3 weeks of continued pain and swelling I went to the doctor, who referred me to an orthopedic doctor. The long and short of it is that the xray and MRI came back normal. I went through 2 months of physical therapy which helped the bulk of the pain subside, but didn’t fix the problem. The thing is, I was able to do just about anything they asked at the time, but the harder I would work it, the more sore it would be a day or two later.
The other difficult part of this is that its very difficult to describe the pain because it doesn’t seem to come from any one particular place. It just feels like something isn’t right. Like my muscles are just out of place or something. Sometimes the discomfort is on the inside of the knee, sometimes it feels more like the outside, sometimes rubbing my quad helps, sometimes rubbing my calf helps. Heat and ice massage help sometimes also. And it seems that sitting cross legged on the floor seems to agitate it. I just can’t seem to pinpoint the problem!!!! I wasn’t able to exercise for several months due to mono, but I am now getting back into things and am hoping to finally overcome this. I am able to ride a bicycle for 15 to 20 min, and I walk for 15 to 20 minutes, and I can now do a flight or two of stairs without significant irritation, but thats about it. I still can’t do the eliptical or run, or do other knee intensive exercises.
Does anyone have any advice? Any particular exercies or stretches that might help? Or even any ideas on what I possibly could have done? Any help would be SO greatly appreciated.
Hi Wendy
I would like to ask you:
>> Are you still doing hot yoga? And if so, how often?
>> What makes the knee hurt now?
>> Do you happen to be aware of alignment issues? Are your hips even parallel to the ground, are the both facing forward?
>> Do either of your ankles fall in? (pronate?)
>> You say you sometimes get relief from muscle massage. Do you massage because your muscles there are hurting or in response to aches around the knee itself?Thanks for helping me with this. Hopefully we’ll both be clearer and maybe we’ll find a solution.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Gabrielle! Thanks so much for a response. To answer your questions…
No, unfortunately I am not still doing hot yoga. I stopped almost all forms of exercise for a couple of months after the swelling and onset of acute pain, and then slowly got back into it after seeing the doctor and having those tests done. I actually tried getting back into exercise using regular yoga, but then I found that my knee would be sore the rest of the day and the next day (which was a more intense effect than if I just did the bike or walked). So eventually I learned that yoga irritated it. I still stretch my legs out a bit every day or every other day, but not to the degree of yoga stretching.
What makes it hurt now… its interesting because if I use my knee too much, it aches. But if I don’t use it enough, it aches. So there’s some kind of medium to be found, but even when I think I’ve found it there is a little soreness. I can’t say PAIN so much anymore, mostly its just discomfort and aching and soreness. Sitting cross legged on the floor irritates it (not immediately, its a prolonged effect), as does too much activity like the eliptical for more than 10 or 15 min, walking up or down more than 3 or 4 flights of stairs, squatting down to the floor, etc. But again, I’m able to do these things, it just aches afterwards.
I do not have any alignment issues that I’m aware of, although I guess I naturally tend to stand with my feet pointed a little outwards. No issues with pronating.
I only massage it in response to aches around the knee itself. I usually feel the discomfort in and around my knee, but as I rub it, it continues to feel good if I rub a little down into my shins or a little up into my quads or over to the side of my knee. Sometimes it also feels good to stretch my calf.
I’m sure all of this sounds terribly confusing, so I apologize. Its been confusing me for MONTHS now. Which is why I came here! 🙂 I just wish I knew what I did, or what muscle I harmed, or how I could rehabilitate it. In fact, I’ve thought several times about just doing hot yoga again to see what happens, but then I’m terrified that it would set me back to where I was in the beginning.
As I’ve been thinking about it… the overall gist is that there seems to be a problem going from bending to straight. But when I’ve tried stretching the hamstrings, it ends up sore. And I never know if its a good “workout” sore, or a bad “you keep injuring me” sore. Another overall observation is that things just feel differently in each knee. When I do calf raises for example, my injured leg seems to use different muscles. Or it feels different. Sometimes I have to consciously “release” my knee, as if I had intended on tensing it…
Hi Wendy
Robert and I were talking today (as we do!) about knees! Sometimes MRIs don’t show everything. It could be a meniscal or ligamental problem that is in there! Robert was saying how his physio also told him this when he went with his knee problem years ago. He also empathized and recognized the parallel with his own leg about too much and too little activity causing the pain.
What I would like to offer is this. I would like to ask if you are willing to change your walking and standing habit to turn your feet in to a parallel position? Try this. Plus also see if you can sit in a regular kneeling position: With hips on heels and knees together, tops of feet flat on floor. This may be difficult for any number of reasons so use whatever padding you need, under your ankles or knees, under your bottom, wherever. Just try that and see if this position can start to restore balance in the muscles and ligaments. Do this whenever you can. If you watch TV do it then.
Let me know how you go with this. When you decide to go back to yoga, come here and we can talk about the modifications for poses so you can approach them with safety instead of the dread that you have in your mind about it.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Yes, I will definitely try to make sure my feet are parallel when I walk or stand! As for the regular kneeling position, I’ve tried it several times with the tips of my bottom feet still on the floor (mostly on accident when I’m in the store and I’m looking at something on the bottom shelf) and it feels VERY strange. Its actually when I knelt in that position that I first truly noticed that my muscles didn’t feel like they were in the right place. But I’m working on it. What I do is: from downward dog, bring my knees to the floor, and then go into child’s pose (very slowly) until my hips are on my heels. Then, I slowly sit up and let my muscles adjust to the kneeling position. Sometimes, if that position feels okay, I’ll go ahead and put my toes on the floor again and then slowly go into a sort of kneeling/squatting position. But that one still always feels very strange and I will usually ice it afterwards.
And really, I only do that little routine a few times a week for a few minutes, so I will definitely try doing it while watching TV or something. Thank you so much for the recommendations! I will let you know how it goes. :cheese:
Hi Wendy
Great! Just don’t complicate it. I like the move from downdog to the kneeling position. Flatten those feet onto the floor and don’t force anything. Just sit up and sit still! Use padding whenever you like.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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